They extend as far as
the eye can reach, and continue passing for hours. By counting and
estimation I calculated that at least 30,000 passed one evening while we
could see them, and they continued on some time after dark. The species
is probably the _Pteropus edulis_; its expanded wings are near 5 ft.
across, and it flies with great ease and rapidity. Fruit seems so scarce
in these jungles that it is a mystery where they find enough to supply
such vast multitudes.
Our mode of life here is very simple--rather too much so, as we have a
continual struggle to get enough to eat. The Sarawak market is to a
great extent supplied with rice, fowls, and sweet potatoes from this
river, yet I have been obliged to send to Sarawak to purchase these very
articles. The reason is that the Dyaks are almost all in debt to the
Malay traders, and will therefore not sell anything, fearful of not
having sufficient to satisfy their creditors. They have now just got in
their rice harvest, and though it is not a very abundant one there is no
immediate pressure of hunger to induce them to earn anything by hunting
or snaring birds, etc.
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